I originally heard about Maverick’s when I was doing some research on big wave surfing for a story I was working on. I knew there were waves in California, but I was only familiar with southern California, which has great surfing, but not what would be considered “big wave” surfing, from what I learned. I found that the big ones were primarily in Hawaii and Tahiti. Pipeline, Haleiwa, Peahi, and Teahupo’o are all well known for giant surf, and there’s no shortage of information about them. I got what I needed for the story, and it happened to be the time of year for the Pipeline Masters surf contest, so I watched a live stream of that which was really cool. If you’ve never checked out big wave surfing, or any surfing really, I recommend giving it a watch. It’s a great sport, and it’s not as easy as they make it look.
Even though I had completed my research, I found myself leaving live streams of Maui beaches on for background while I was writing the piece. It was soothing, the scenery was beautiful, and every once in a while there would be some cool spontaneous surfing by the locals. I found other streams and contest videos too, but for some reason I kept thinking about Maverick’s. It was stuck in my head, like a song you can’t stop singing. Something about it gave me the creeps, but at the same time fascinated me.
Maverick’s is located off of Half Moon Bay, in northern California. This is not to say you can just drive to the beach, hop out and start surfing. The break itself is a half mile paddle out from the harbor, through some very treacherous currents and underwater topography. The reason the waves get so big is also why it’s so dangerous out there. Essentially, where the waves break is like a shelf surrounded by deep water on all sides. The waves come down the coast, from the north, and break over this ledge, but it’s out in open ocean. The bottom is rock, not sand, not coral. Big rocks. To the north of this break is Seal Point, where an estimated 10,000 elephant seals annually visit. This means a not insignificant number of great white sharks also visit the area, to add to the already stupidly dangerous pile of risk factors. Several experienced big wave surfers have died out there. It is a gnarly place.
Maverick’s was a secret until 1991. The outer reef was first surfed by a local named Jeff Clark, back in 1975 when he was a teenager. He took a couple friends out years later, around 1985, but they stayed in the channel watching, refusing to try their luck on the break, leaving Jeff to ride the massive waves by himself. For the next 15 years, Jeff Clark surfed Maverick’s by himself, keeping the location a secret primarily to discourage less experienced surfers from giving it a shot and getting themselves killed. In 1991 he took a couple guys from Santa Cruz out, and then it was photographed for Surfer magazine, and then it wasn’t a secret anymore.
When conditions are right, Maverick’s can produce some massive waves, in the 20 -30 foot range, sometimes bigger. Because it is in a protected marine boundary, there are no motorized vehicles allowed out there, except by special permission, which is usually only for the annual contest they have every winter. So if you are out there and start getting walloped, there’s no one coming to get you. Two wave hold-downs are not uncommon, and also part of the danger.
The other thing about Maverick’s – it seemed oddly familiar to me. All along the coast in that area is very rugged, but beautiful. There’s also something surreal and a little foreboding about it. Maybe it’s the fog, maybe it’s because the ocean isn’t the same color blue as the waves I had seen in Hawaii, or the rocky shorelines and bluffs along the beaches. I couldn’t put my finger on why it felt so familiar though. There’s nothing like that landscape out here in the flatlands outside Chicago so it wasn’t like it reminded me of something. It was a strange feeling.
I don’t know why it kept my attention like it did. It’s certainly not from the perspective of someone who could actually go there and ride it. I live in the Midwest, and while I do have plenty of experience riding skateboards, I am not a surfer. There just aren’t the same opportunities for it here. Sometimes Lake Michigan can get pretty big, but it’s usually in the winter, so you have to wear a rubber dry-suit and dodge chunks of ice, which is not a surfing experience I am interested in.
I had been to California twice when I was younger, once on a family trip and once just me and my dad, and a couple times much later in my adult life. On the family trip, we were in San Diego and Encinitas, and my brother and I got out in the water, although I can’t say I “surfed.” Mostly I paddled around on a rented board and got bashed into the wash trying to stand up on small choppy waves. It was fun just being out in the ocean, and after getting rolled around a bit and then more successfully body surfing I get the appeal of riding waves. I also have a real understanding of just how difficult it is. It was a fun time though, being young and crashing around on the beach with my brother.
The other trip was not a family trip, it was just me and my dad. He was doing advance scouting work for the company he was with at the time, checking out hotels for a conference they were managing. We visited San Fransisco, then drove down to Carmel, and then went to Monterey. He did his work stuff during the day while I rode my skateboard.
I was in high school, I think about junior year, and it was summer, so I was at loose ends. I forget exactly why the rest of the family didn’t go with us, but it was a little unusual that it was just me and him. We flew from Chicago to San Fransisco, non-stop, then got the car and headed south. Traffic out of the city was bad, it took a long time to get out on the Pacific Coast highway, and there weren’t really any places to stop without getting off and going into a neighborhood or something, but we were starting to get pretty hungry – the last time we ate was breakfast, and it was getting close to dinner.
The view as you drive along US 1 is epic, especially for someone who had never seen the northern California coast. It was so beautiful and different, it was hard to believe it was real. I remember saying to my dad, “That’s it, right here is the edge of land, the end of the United states.”
“Yeah, true, that’s it. If you go that way,” he pointed west, out over the ocean, “the next thing you’ll run into is Japan eventually, if you’re lucky.”
“Wow. Hey are you hungry? I’m getting pretty hungry, how much longer until Carmel?”
“A while, at least an hour and a half. I’m hungry too, keep your eyes open for somewhere, let’s stop and eat.”
The problem was, for as beautiful as the drive along the coast was, there didn’t seem to be many opportunities stop and get something to eat. It was all cliffs and hills on one side, ocean on the other. We drove on, hoping to find something, but it just kept going like that. I don’t remember how long it was before we saw an arrow lit up, appearing off the side of the highway. As we got closer we saw what looked like a little hot dog place, at least that’s what it looked like to me, those places where inside there would be an order window, a pickup window, menu on the wall behind, and picnic tables inside to eat at. It was by itself, at the foot of the hills and valleys and what my dad said was part of the San Andreas fault. It had a blue tile roof and one of those arrow-surrounded-by-lightbulbs signs out front that said “Tacos” which was good enough for us. We pulled off the road, parked in a dirt lot and went in.
Inside the place was lively but not overcrowded. An atmosphere of happy people eating good food and having a good time together. The layout was a lot like what I expected, they had a counter instead of a window, the menu was up on the wall behind. We ordered, they gave us a number, and my dad grabbed some beverages from the cooler as we went to sit down.
When the food came out, it was in those red plastic paper lined fast food baskets – just like a lot of the hot dog joints I was familiar with. I think my dad got tacos, I don’t remember, because I was so surprised by the burrito I got. It was huge. It filled the entire basket, probably a foot long, five inches in diameter. It had red sauce on one end, cheese in the middle, green sauce on the other end.
I’m not sure exactly what I ordered, but I did not expect this. If I had to guess, it would be called the “everything we make here in a burrito” burrito. Even my dad was a little taken aback by it. I had to attack with a plastic knife and fork because this burrito was way too big to pick up, and I chose to work from one end to the other rather than diving in the middle. It was remarkable. It was more like an archeological dig than eating a burrito, I kept finding different layers of things, beans and cheese with lettuce and tomato, then a little later rice with chicken, then steak and guacamole. I believe there was a chorizo layer at one point, as well as what I think were ranchero beans, and then fresh avocado and sour cream. It was ridiculous, and delicious.
The rest of the trip was great, it was fun skateboarding during the day and hanging out with my dad at night. I figured there would be opportunities for similar burritos in other places, like they were a “California thing,” they probably had them everywhere. I was wrong about that. There were no other places that had burritos like that out there, or anywhere else, and believe me, I’ve looked.
Many years later, I was back in San Fransisco, this time on a business trip of my own. I knew I was going to have some down time one afternoon, and I had decided to try and find that burrito place. This was pre-internet, or at least early internet, so there was no Google maps or street view or anything like that. I did the best I could to try and figure out where we might have been and where it was but came up empty. I never forgot it though, and as the internet evolved and made finding things easier through the years occasionally I would jump down that rabbit hole, always coming up empty. I began to believe it was like Brigadoon, a mythical roadside restaurant that would appear out of the coastal fog once in a while for hungry travelers and serve them the most incredible burritos they had ever had, and then fade back into whatever dimension it came from.
I hadn’t spoken with my dad about the trip we took to San Fransisco together in a very long time, and we got to chatting about it one Monday night recently. We text each other during Monday Night Football sometimes, just bs-ing about the game and whatever else. This game was the Seattle Seahawks hosting the Philadelphia Eagles, and they were showing a lot of shots from around the city. I have been to Seattle and think it is fantastic, so the chat turned to that:
Me: They keep showing shots of Seattle, what a cool city.
Dad: It is. I got there twice, rained both times 😊
Me: I was fortunate enough to miss that part of the experience for the most part 😊
Dad: West coast cities I like, in no order – Seattle, Portland, San Fransisco. I like the northern cities better than LA or San Diego.
Me: Agree about the cities, I haven’t been to Portland yet. Monterey was nice.
Dad: Oh yeah!! The whole Monterey area is terrific. Big Sur, though not a city, is pretty neat. Spent a few days camping there.
Me: Really? That’s cool, did not know that. Big Sur is legendary.
Dad: Mom and I took a few days and drove there from your brother’s place when he lived out there. We took our own tent and sleeping bags, borrowed a Coleman stove from your brother. It was a fun couple of days.
Me: That sounds amazing!
Dad: Henry Miller had a place there. Seriously laid back, beautiful area.
Me: Jack Kerouac and Hunter Thompson wrote about it as well.
Dad: Yep!! Big Sur is like the gray area between norther and southern California. Kind of an in-between place, it has the essence of each.
Me: It is a unique spot. One of the gnarliest waves on earth is out there in between Big Sur and San Francisco – Maverick’s. It’s off Half Moon Bay. It’s scary in the ocean out there man, but the land is beautiful 😊
Dad: Oh yeah! Half Moon Bay is where we got that amazing Mexican food.
Me: Your kidding. I’ve been there?
Me: Wait…the burrito??!!
Dad: Yessir!!! 😊
Waves aren’t the only thing legendary about Maverick’s. They have these burritos, too.
-PJ
Refrences:
https://www.surfertoday.com/surfing/the-history-of-the-teahupoo-waves-and-surf-break
https://maverickssurfcompany.com/pages/the-history-of-mavericks
https://www.surfer.com/videos/discovering-mavericks
HW 1 photo credit – Google
Maverick’s photo credit – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2010_mavericks_competition.jpg